Vancouver Travel Day

I love vacation and especially hotel beds!

Hanging in the Air Canada lounge pre-departure.

 
Ready, set, go. We're off to the wild West. Flying out of Toronto and back in to Hamilton posed one issue; we need our vehicle to move locations while we're gone.  Enter the problem-solver, Bruno, who was kind enough to drive us to the airport and drop our car back at YHM.  We quickly identified the second benefit to Bruno's participation -- we were actually on time arriving at the airport almost 2 hours before (domestic) flight departure.  Far better then any international flight we've taken.

With Owen's recent bout with croup and flare up of asthma coupled with his newfound love to almost be on his two feet (cruising) we weren't overly hopeful for a peaceful flight.  Due to some medical advice we actually considered canceling the trip until Owen seemed to be on the mend. Fortunately we gobbled up some Aeroplan points and decided to the ride at the front of the bus assuming the added space would be helpful. It certainly was.

We enjoyed a relatively uneventful flight with Owen spending a portion of the time reading with Julie, standing on the floor, or smiling at the ladies and children around us.

Keeping Owen occupied for 5 hours. Easy peasy.

A 5 hour flight does feel slightly like an 8 hour flight when you spend the entire time entertaining instead of relaxing.  Either way, we were grateful for the uneventful flight and all the smiling ladies, which Owen loves, surrounding us.

With our heaps of luggage we had pre-arranged transportation.  It was a safe bet that paid off as a taxi van would likely not have sufficed. The first thing we noted about downtown Vancouver properties is that the front yards have the world's tallest shrubs, regardless of stateliness of the property.  Fifteen foot shrubs generally reserved for small mansions lined the streets of commoners.

Decent view from hotel.

We checked in at the Fairmont Pacific Rim - not to be confused with the seemingly dozen other Fairmonts in Vancouver.  This hotel is the most modern of the fleet and a far cry from other Fairmont properties we've stayed at.  We're in a Harbour Mountainview Suite courtesy of a free suite upgrade from Fairmont's FPC program.  The room offers a great view, some high-tech and confusing in-room controls, a nice sized balcony, two full bathrooms -- one includes a tv in the mirror -- and most importantly, a living space separate from the bedroom -- aka Owen's bedroom. The hotel provided a bunch of baby amenities such as a crib, bathtub, bottle warmer ... and a bunch of other things.  Handy.

We didn't have any plans for the day of our arrival so we merely stumbled around aimlessly around the hotel.  Passing the Vancouver Art Gallery we decided to stop at their outdoor treed cafe for lunch.  It was a bit of a debacle to get to the second story as the exterior included a million steps. Going through the art gallery included a security escort to get to the elevator and a security escort waiting on the next floor followed by a path through an unmarked door and a hallway that doubled as a storage closet.

Back door "accessible" access to cafe

In the end it was worth it and we enjoyed some good food on the sunny patio, despite having to sit in the shade.  Owen decided to throw us a curve ball by staying awake until 7pm local time or 3 hours later then back home.  Fingers crossed that he doesn't wake up at 330am (630am back home; his usual wake up).

Vancouver Art Gallery Cafe

Once Owen was asleep we hooked up some Facetime action-a-la-video-baby-monitor and headed down to the lobby bar for a quick dinner and drink.  All in all a successful first day.